Magical Realism

Magical realism is fiction genre in which magical elements blend to create a realistic atmosphere that accesses a deeper understanding of reality. Also, magical realism portrays fantastical events in an otherwise realistic tone. It brings fables, folk tales, and myths into contemporary social relevance. Fantasy traits given to characters, such as levitation, telepathy, and telekinesis, help to encompass modern political realities that can be phantasmagorical

A well-known writer that uses magical realism on his work is Gabriel García Marquez. He was born in Aracataca, Colombia, on March 6, 1928.  He published his first book of short stories, Leafstorm and Other Stories in 1955. His most famous work is his novel, One Hundred Years of Solitude was published in 1967. In 1982, he won the Nobel prize for literature. 






Gabriel García Márquez uses the technique of magical realism in his novels as well as his short stories. Marquez uses magical realism to blend reality and fantasy so that the distinction between the two erases.  An example of this technique comes from the story "A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings" where an angel falls to the Earth because of a violent rainstorm. When the angel is found by Pelayo and Elisenda, they are shocked to see an angel, and yet they never question its existence.




 
Opinion

It's important to know that this genre is not about fantasy as seen on Disney movies or similar. In fact, there are many definitions about magical realism; this causes a non exact meaning. Besides, it is different from fantasy literature as movies try to sell us because there are many characteristics such as the following: the story, as it unfolds, gives the reader a sense of being inside a puzzle or maze; creates a space for interaction and diversity, hybridity; on the boundaries and destabilizes normative opposition.

Of Mice and Men

Lennie and George are best friends on a road trip, but this isn't that fun kind of road trip with wacky adventures. They're broke and looking for work on the farms of Northern California. The duo can't hold down jobs for long, thanks to Lennie's childlike mentality and odd fetish for petting things, which includes mice, rabbits, puppies, and women.

Good fortune smiles upon them briefly when they get work at a ranch near Soledad, California. Their co-workers include Candy, Crooks and Curley. We also meet Slim, our local and wise ranch demi-god; and Carlson, a callous ranch hand, who tells Candy to adopt a new puppy and shoot his old dog because it's smelly.Curley is itching for a fight after he (falsely) suspects Slim of making time with his girl, so he gets into a brawl with Lennie—who crushes his hand. 



On Sunday afternoon, Lennie's in the barn with a dead puppy. He admonishes the puppy for "going and getting killed," which we think is actually not so much the puppy's fault as it is Lennie's.  Finally, George shows up. He's acting all weird, so we're pretty sure something bad is about to happen. And it does. George starts talking about their dream farm and tells Lennie to look out over the river and imagine it—and then shoots him in the head. 

Themes

The Predatory Nature of Human Existence

Nearly all of the characters, including George, Lennie, Candy, Crooks, and Curley’s wife, admit, at one time or another, to having a deep sense of loneliness and isolation. The characters are rendered helpless by their isolation, and yet, even at their weakest, they seek to destroy those who are even weaker than they. The novella suggests that the most visible kind of strength—that used to oppress others—is itself born of weakness.

Fraternity and the Idealized Male Friendship

One of the reasons that the tragic end of George and Lennie’s friendship has such a profound impact is that one senses that the friends have, by the end of the novella, lost a dream larger than themselves. The men in Of Mice and Men desire to come together in a way that would allow them to be like brothers to one another. That is, they want to live with one another’s best interests in mind, to protect each other, and to know that there is someone in the world dedicated to protecting them. 

Symbols

George and Lennie’s Farm

It seduces not only the other characters but also the reader, who, like the men, wants to believe in the possibility of the free, idealized life it promises. The farm represents the possibility of freedom, self-reliance, and protection from the cruelties of the world.

Lennie’s Puppy

Lennie kills the puppy accidentally, as he has killed many mice before, by virtue of his failure to recognize his own strength. Like an innocent animal, Lennie is unaware of the vicious, predatory powers that surround him.

 

Contemporary Period

1945 to the Present

Contemporary literature is a vast group of written works produced from a specific time in history through the current age. This literary era defines a time period, but it also describes a particular style and quality of writing.

Most of the literature written before World War II dealt with the issue of how people could go on living with these realizations. Much of contemporary literature comes from Western authors; however, the term is not synonymous with English or American literature, and this literary period can apply to written works from anywhere in the world.

Genres included in this literary period span a variety of writing forms in addition to novels and poetry. Flash fiction, short stories, slam poetry, plays, memoirs, and autobiographies can all be included in this category.Typical characteristics of the contemporary period include reality-based stories with strong characters and a believable story.

Beat Generation

Literary group that developed from the mid-1950s until the early 1960s.The major Beat writings include Jack Kerouac's On the Road, Allen Ginsberg's Howl, and William Burroughs' Naked Lunch. Both Howl and Naked Lunch became the focus of obscenity trials in the United States that helped to liberalize what could be legally published. 

Sexuality

Some Beat writers were openly gay or bisexual, including two of the most prominent (Ginsberg and Burroughs). Some met each other through gay connections, including David Kammerer's interest in Lucien Carr.

Drug use

The original members of the Beat Generation used a number of different drugs, including alcohol, marijuana, benzedrine, morphine, and later psychedelic drugs, and LSD. The actual results of this "experimentation" can be difficult to determine. Claims that some of these drugs can enhance creativity, insight or productivity were quite common, as is the belief that the drugs in use were a key influence on the social events of the time


Modernism

Though the Beat aesthetic posited itself against T. S. Eliot's creed of strict objectivity and literary modernism's new classicism, certain modernist writers were major influences on the Beats, including Louis-Ferdinand Céline, Ezra Pound, William Carlos Williams, and H.D.. Pound was specifically important to Gary Snyder and Allen Ginsberg.Williams published several of Ginsberg's letters to him in his epic poem Paterson and wrote an introduction to two of Ginsberg's books. 
 

• Spiritual liberation, sexual "revolution" or "liberation," i.e., gay liberation, somewhat catalyzing women's liberation, black liberation, Gray Panther activism.
• Liberation of the world from censorship.
• Demystification and/or decriminalization of cannabis and other drugs.
• The evolution of rhythm and blues into rock and roll as a high art form, as evidenced by the Beatles, Bob Dylan, Janis Joplin, and other popular musicians influenced in the later fifties and sixties by Beat generation poets' and writers' works.

 

The Road Not Taken

Robert Frost (March 26, 1874 – January 29, 1963)






He was an American poet. His work was initially published in England before it was published in America. One of the most popular and critically respected American poets of the twentieth century, Frost was honored frequently during his lifetime, receiving four Pulitzer Prizes for Poetry. 

Literary Legacy

In the late 1950s, Frost, along with Ernest Hemingway and T.S. Eliot, championed the release of his old acquaintance Ezra Pound, who was being held in a federal mental hospital for a crime. 
In 1961, at the age of 86, Frost was honored when asked to write and recite a poem for President John F. Kennedy's inauguration. His sight now failing, he was not able to see the words in the sunlight and substituted the reading of one of his poems, "The Gift Outright," which he had committed to memory.

Poem
 
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that, the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

Analysis

This poem was written in the first person, which boosts the question of whether the speaker is the poet himself or a persona, a character created for the purposes of the poem. In the first stanza of the poem, the speaker, while walking on an autumn day in a forest where the leaves have changed to yellow, must choose between two paths that head in different directions. the beginning of the second, one road seems desirable; however, by the beginning of the third stanza he has decided that the paths are approximately equivalent.

Later in the third stanza, he tries to cheer himself up by encourage himself that he will return someday and walk the other road. At the end of the third stanza and in the fourth, however, the speaker resumes his initial tone of sorrow and regret. He realizes that he probably will never return to walk the double path, and in the fourth stanza he considers how the choice he must make now will look to him in the future.

Opinion

This poem tells about making decisions, there are two paths to choose. Also I believe that the author is having a hard time to take a decision about an important career. This poem makes us think about real decisions that we should consider to be taken, and not only look at them as metaphors.

Romanticism

Romanticism was reasonable the largest artistic movement of the late 1700s.No other period displays more variety in style, theme, and content such as this movement. Romanticism stresses on self-expression and individual uniqueness that does not lend itself to precise definition. Some characteristics of this period are the following:

a) Strong senses, emotions, and feelings

• Romantics believed that knowledge is gained through intuition rather than deduction. This is best summed up by Wordsworth who stated that “all good poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings.”

b) Importance of imagination

• Romantics legitimized the individual imagination as a critical authority. 

c) idealization of women and children

• These were the people who worked for pennies in the many factories springing up as a part of industry.  Even if a woman was pregnant, to stop working was not an option.

d) the supernatural and the occult

• "Supernatural" referred to anything above or beyond the norm in this world.  During that time, God was considered to be supernatural, as well as ghosts, witches, spirits, etc.

Famous romantic writers

William Blake (1757 – 1827)

• Blake is famous not only for his poems, but for the illuminated plates on which he printed them. His most famous works are likely those in Songs of Innocence and of Experience.  The poems often function in pairs, one from the perspective of childlike “innocence,” the other from the perspective of disillusioned “experience.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882)

• Had a religious sense of mission. Although many accused him of subverting Christianity, he explained that, for him "to be a good minister, it was necessary to leave the church. Emerson's philosophy has been called contradictory, and it is true that he consciously avoided building a logical intellectual system because such a rational system would have negated his Romantic belief in intuition and flexibility.

Edgar Allan Poe

• Poe is as well known for his lifestyle as for his work. He is quite famous for being dissipated, marrying cousins, and things like that. We find in Poe the dark side of the romantic transcendentalists in Poe and in Hawthorne.Poe is very gothic. "Ligeia," "The Raven," and "The Fall of the House of Usher" are all very gothic works. 
• Beyond horror, Poe also wrote satires, humor tales, and hoaxes. For comic effect, he used irony and ludicrous extravagance, often in an attempt to liberate the reader from cultural conformity. 

Point of View

• Many people believe that romantic period is about love, but is NOT about it. Romanticism rejects the classical emphasis on order and rationality. Readers should know that this period is about personal freedom, abstract settings, the gothic as nightmare world of intense emotions; such as Edgar Allan Poe, also, desire as personal motivation. We can't put  definitions of Romantic and Love in the same page, there are totally different, opposite.

Because I couldn't stop for death

This is an Emily Dickinson's poem that talks about her acceptance of death as something inevitable that comes to her and has no control over it. Emily Dickinson (1830-1886) was an isolated American poet. Dickinson began writing as a teenager, some of her influences include Leonard Humphrey, principal of Amherst Academy, and a family friend named Benjamin Franklin Newton. 

She is known for her passionate and restricted verse, which deep influenced the direction of 20th century poetry. The strength of her literary voice, as well as her isolated and unconventional life, contributes to the sense of Dickinson as an unforgettable American character.

Analysis

Firstly, the speaker is dead and is a ghost or spirit thinking back to the day of her death. She's actually pretty calm about it too. Perhaps because she has been dead for so long she has not break down about it anymore, or maybe she was ready to die when she did.

Moreover, there is a setting that moves around a little because the speaker and Death are going for a ride in a carriage. It starts when Death picks up the speaker and they drive for a while through her town, past the schoolyard and fields of grain, and eventually to her burial site. 

The setting changes a little bit in the final stanza. The whole poem takes place in the eternity, but the memory of the ride has a different setting generally.

An interesting fact about this poem is that it doesn't have a title. Dickinson didn't title any of her poems, because she never meant to publish them.

The following are some themes  present in the poem:

Mortality

Mortality is probably the major theme in this poem. It's all about the speaker's attitude toward her death and what the actual day of her death was like. The speaker isn't scared of death at all, and seems to accept it.

Immortality

So, in this poem, Dickinson explores the idea of eternal life. In this poem there is life after death, which offers an explanation as to why the speaker's so calm about everything. Death's not the end, just one step closer to eternity.

Spirituality

Dickinson had to believe in some sort of life after death, but she leaves specific religious references out of the poem, and there's no evidence if the speaker is recalling the memory of her death from Heaven, Hell, or somewhere else; we only know that it's a place beyond this world.

The Old Man and the Sea.

 

Plot Overview

The story begins with an old man named Santiago. He is a fisherman who has not caught a fish in 84 days. There is also a boy in this story, Manolin, who is dear friends with the old man. The old man taught him to fish when he was young, and the boy brings the old man food. 

So this old man goes to sleep dreaming of the lions he used to see back in the day in Africa. He wakes before sunrise and does what fishermen do – namely, get in his boat and head out to fish. A "marlin" to be more exact. Most of the novella consists of this struggle, which lasts over three days.

But this is no happy ending. It’s just a happy mid-point followed by an extraordinarily sad ending. The old man straps the fish to the side of the boat and heads home.  By the time he makes it back to shore, there is nothing left of the fish but a skeleton.

There are at least 10 or more themes in "The Old Man and the sea" story such as: Perseverance, Suffering, Pride, Memory and the Past,Defeat, Man and the Natural World, Hunger, Respect and Reputation, Luck, Friendship, etc., the following are some themes explained:

Perseverance

The old man makes up for his old age with incredible endurance, willing to withstand hunger, physical pain, and isolation from the rest of the world as he battles the fish.  

Strength and Skill

The old man may, certainly, not be as strong as in his youth, but he makes up for it and more with his knowledge of the sea and his fishing talent.

Isolation

This isolation defines who he is, and emphasizes the unique nature of his character. Isolation becomes both a weakness (he suffers from loneliness), but also a necessary element to his battle with the fish. 

Friendship

The old man’s relationship with the boy is characterized as "love," and Manolin expresses deep admiration for the old man’s fishing abilities. The old man also finds brotherhood with certain creatures on the sea; this type of relationship is based on similar characteristics such as nobility or determination.  

Personal Point of View

I believe Santiago is a brave old man who had the courage to catch a "marlin"  on his journey to the sea together with Manolin. This boy against his parents decision, determined to take care of the old man until his return each night. This novel also remind us of our own loneliness and quest for survival. 
Besides, Santiago was once the best fisherman ever. But then he grew older and couldn’t catch a fish for 84 days. Everyone assumes he is cursed and packs him away in the “old” and “unlucky” boxes. He fights the labels, and so do we. It’s our natural human tendency.